Admission Applicants Include Many From Jesuit High Schools

Strong recruitment effort pays off

By Reid Oslin
Staff Writer

Boston College is a popular choice for alumni of the nation's 46 Jesuit secondary schools, with 162 graduates of Jesuit high schools enrolled in the Class of 2001, according to Undergraduate Admission Office figures.

Boston College received 873 applications from Jesuit high school seniors last year, according to Director of Undergraduate Admission John Mahoney Jr. "That is a significant number of applications from one of the strongest groups of schools in the nation," he said.

Mahoney said such interest from Jesuit-trained students is not an accident. Each of the Jesuit secondary schools is visited by a Boston College admission officer, usually for a half- or full-day session, which includes student interviews and in-person meetings with each school's guidance staff.

"This way, we not only recognize the quality of the students in these schools," Mahoney said, "but we can clearly demonstrate our interest in having the students take a serious look at Boston College. The attention we pay to these schools makes these points pretty clear."

Boston College High School, long one of the University's top feeder schools, leads the way in both numbers of applications and enrollments. Last year, 96 BC High seniors applied to Boston College, and 30 of those are enrolled in the Class of 2001.

Mahoney points out that the interest in Boston College is not limited to Jesuit schools in Boston or New England. In the most recent admission cycle, for example, there were 52 applicants from Loyola Academy in Wilmette, Ill., 46 from Regis Prep in New York City, 45 from Loyola High in Los Angeles, 31 from St. Ignatius in Cleveland, 24 from Colegio San Ignacio in Rio Piedras, Puerto Rico, and seven from Kansas City's Rockhurst Prep.

The current year's yield of students from the Jesuit schools - about 7.5 percent of the freshman class - is not unusual. Admission records show that 650 Boston College undergraduates are products of Jesuit secondary education, about 7 percent of the undergraduate student body.

"Jesuit secondary education is a wonderful preparation for the level of academics that we offer at Boston College," Mahoney said. "Our follow-up studies indicate that Jesuit high school graduates have done very well here and that is directly attributable to the first-rate education that the students have received at these schools."